Remarks at the Opening of the Gaziantep University American Corner

Gaziantep University / December 15, 2009

Chargé D’Affaires Douglas Silliman (Right) and Gaziantep University Rector Dr. M. Yavuz Coşkun (Middle)

by Douglas Silliman, DCM

I want to thank Prof. Dr. Mehmet Yavuz Coskun for his hospitality and support.   I understand that Professor Dr. Coskun was recently in the U.S. to get a close-up view of our higher education system.  We're grateful that he has agreed to allow us to showcase a little bit of our history and culture here at his university.

It's exciting to see the collections of books and other materials, the computers, television, DVD player -- all ready to give students and other visitors access to information about America and Americans.

The United States has a longstanding commitment to maintaining an open dialogue with people throughout the world.  The goal of American Corners is to facilitate that dialogue and to build bridges of understanding and optimism for our common future.

We hope this Corner will be used as a resource to help students and others expand their knowledge of the world.  We hope that every day visitors will come to pick up a book about life in the United States, e-mail an American friend living in Minnesota, or watch a video about the history of American jazz.

This should also be a place where students can learn how to apply to a U.S. university or get advice about financial aid and other big questions.  Thirteen thousand Turks are currently studying in the U.S., and most are getting scholarships and other financial assistance.  We hope this Corner will help more students from Gaziantep and this region take advantage of the many opportunities to study in the United States.

And we want this Corner to be even more than that.  Our commitment to the university and to the people of Gaziantep is to bring not just information but also Americans themselves to your beautiful city.  This Corner should be a place where Turks and Americans with similar interests can come and share their experiences and opinions, and get to know each other better.  So we plan to bring experts and scholars and other speakers to participate in discussions on the whole range of topics that interest you.  And when we can't get Americans here in person, we'll use technology to bring them to you via Digital Video Conferences.

So these are all the things we would like this Corner to do.  Perhaps the most important thing I should emphasize, though, is that, at its most basic level, this American Corner is a partnership.  It's a partnership between the University and the Embassy, dedicated to highlighting the values and visions for the future that our two countries share.  That is what this Corner is really about, and we look forward to this partnership being a long and fruitful one.